Skyhound Forums

The few times I looked at AP's charts didn't really thrill me - so I can't say for sure, but I don't *think* the "Associate" feature impacts the rough charting capabilities in AP. But the charts are not a full atlas like SkyTools offers.

I don't think there's a way to create any shared log entry.

The main benefit is to queue the user that the next item on the list is a member of a group. At the very *least*, what I always did is tried to arrange my field of view in such a way so that it showed the entire group in one field of view. I noticed without the "Associate" feature, I would just have my head down going on one at a time and easily miss that the next item was part of a 7-member group of something. (I'm definitely trying to get by using the "Brief" note, but like I said, they're filling up so fast that the entire 45 characters kind of begins to zone out. It doesn't just "leap" out sometimes because the various listings in one Brief Note might be in a completely different order than in another. And Cosmic Challenge really takes up a lot of space because I've tried to reflect not only the Cosmic Challenge designation number, but also which category it's in (naked eye, small scope, medium scope, etc.) AND often times, I'm having to use the Brief note for the NGC number because the item had two other "common names" or popular designations. They're all beginning to jumble quite a bit. I'm spending a lot of time trying to organize them - but I'm also recognizing that I'm only a couple of years into this hobby. I'm assuming after *ten* years that I'll still be using SkyTools and I'm wondering how to handle all the *other* "Brief notes" that will come up between now and then! haha : ) So the luxury of, "View with M86, NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435" is not looking very plausible long-term. (That should be my Brief Note for M84, if I could afford that many characters. Even just entering "Markarian's Chain," by itself, is looking tougher and tougher to manage long-term.)

Ok, well now I get it. It doesn't seem like there is necessarily an actual use for this feature in SkyTools--except that the existing notes brief is too short to hold all of your information.

Adding a special association feature would help, but looking at the big picture, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to add a custom capability for every type of information one might want to add. That would become unwieldy, and it makes the attachments more complicated, which is pretty much the last thing I want to do. I recently spent a lot of time trying to simplify them in the hope that people would actually use them.

Expanding the brief is also not a good idea. This is a brief for a reason: there is only so much room on the screen or paper.

So... that leads us to the way its intended to be used in the first place: put most of your info in the notes rather than the brief, leaving the brief for only those critical (and short) items. I think maybe you are so used to having it all in one place that you may have missed how nice it is to be able to access much more information outside of the columns of the planner. After all, the Object Info partly exists because all that info won't fit in columns.

Allow me to imagine how that might work for you. You are doing one of your live sessions. You have duly of the associated data in in the notes part rather than the brief, by selecting each object and pressing "i" and typing/pasting away. During the session you want to refer to this information to read to your audience Presumably the object you are working with is already highlighted in the planner. Press "i" and read what you have entered.

What is the drawback to that?

(2024-01-26, 10:27 PM)theskyhound Wrote: [ -> ]...You have duly of the associated data in in the notes part rather than the brief, by selecting each object and pressing "i" and typing/pasting away. During the session you want to refer to this information to read to your audience Presumably the object you are working with is already highlighted in the planner. Press "i" and read what you have entered.

What is the drawback to that?

I'm sure I'll get used to it. To me, in my current way of thinking, it's not as convenient, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Just like Greg said the feature you are requesting is already in SkyTools.  
All you need to do is type in an association identifier (label)  in the Briefs for the each of the related object. 
e.g. In your case, "Cosmic Challenge-01" or more simply "C-01" for each of the objects in the first association set.  The "C-02" for the next set, etc. Add notes if you wish.
The you can just sort the Briefs column.

Hi Joe. That's what I've done for sure. But as I look at the list, from my perception, it's just not quite as visual. Of course, that's just my perception. Like I say, I'm sure I'll get used to it.

The other factor is, "Briefs" will eventually fill up. I already have used it for:
Cosmic Challenge
Secret Deep (SD001, SD002, SD003, etc.)
Caldwell List (C001, C002, C003, etc.)
Messier List (M001, M002, M003, etc.)
Hidden Treasures (X001, X002, X003, etc.)
1001 Celestial Wonders (0001, 0002, 0003, etc.)

plus sometimes I've used it to associate objects that are inextricably linked to another, e.g, Markarian Chain, Leo Trio, etc.

And I've only been using SkyTools for a couple of weeks. Without any custom fields, I'm just observing... it's going to fill up fast.

You can create a separate Attachments folder for each of those lists.  for example: create an attachment folder for the Secret Deep, one for Messier, one for Caldwell, etc
You can always pull up any of those folders while viewing any plan list.

---

One more note: Open the information dialog for any object ( press "i" or double-click )
Select the "Observation Lists" tab
You will see a all the lists that contain that object. You can then double-click any of those lists to open it.

Thanks Joe. I knew that was an option, but I'll take another look at it as the "Briefs" fill up. I had noticed the "Observation Lists" tab. Thanks again.
(I hope you don't mind me saying so, but even with all these options, I can't figure out why SkyTools wouldn't give us custom fields that we can create and add ourselves. That capability is found on a wide array of databases like this. That would solve problems on so many levels. But again, I'm a new user - and I'm guilty of loving some parts of SkyTools enough that it makes me want to stay put, even as I'm probably guilty of sometimes grousing about things I miss from other worlds.)